Las Vegas Raiders: Is Gus Bradley’s Cover 3 scheme dead?

How the Raiders can get better at Defending 4 Verticals

Bill Belichick and Nick Saban are credited with creating the modern cover 3 that is now played in the NFL. At a coaching clinic in 2010, Nick Saban spoke to some of the nuances of the defense.

"When you’re playing a passing team you always have a better chance with split-safeties, but with all this zone read / zone option stuff we see…all the spread stuff, sometimes you’ve got to be able to play middle-of-the-field coverage to get an extra guy in the box."

So Saban and Belichick engineered what is now commonly referred to as Rip/Liz Match Cover 3 combining man principles with a zone to get the best of both worlds while keeping 8 men in the box.

In this clip, Gus Bradley’s Chargers defense is in Cover 3 against 4 verticals. Usually, this would put the middle safety in a bind because he will need to choose which seam to defend based on the quarterback’s eyes. Rip/Liz match erases this problem, allowing the middle safety to cheat to the true zone side because the matching side of the defense has a safety taking all of 2 vertical.

Joe Burrow does everything right here, using his eyes to move the middle of the field safety away from his intended throw. However, Chargers Safety Rayshawn Jenkins to the backside is essentially playing man coverage on the tight end. There is no window for Burrow to throw the ball into because of this simple yet effective way Cover 3 has evolved.

NFL offenses have started to attack Cover 3 by putting running 4 verticals with 3 wide receivers on the same side. This is another attempt to make the middle safety wrong by choosing which vertical he will take. Defenses around the country at every level have responded by introducing a rule for the weak hook defender, hook defender away from the three-receiver side, to match 3 vertical while in Cover 3.

In this clip, San Francisco safety Jaquiski Tartt is the weak hook defender, however, this could also be a linebacker depending on the coverage call (although it is probably best for a safety to have this responsibility). The rules of modern Cover 3 remain the same regardless of who is in that spot. An aspect of what makes this coverage so appealing for teams who have young players on defense; as long as the rules are taught well, anyone can play any spot.